Molly suspected also that Joe was impatient to see the back of them. He hadn’t said as much, but now and then she would catch him staring at her with a strange look on his face. It made her feel uncomfortable. Oh, she didn’t blame him! He was a hard-working man who had tended to the family when his father died. He had every right to come home to a house free of lodgers. Molly understood that. If the house next door – which had been hers and Jack’s – had not already been let to an elderly couple, she might have been very tempted to climb in through the back window and lay claim to it. Silly thoughts though, she now reminded herself, because if she wasn’t able to pay a proper rent, the landlord would soon fetch in the strong-arms to put her on the streets. No, she had a lot to thank Tilly for, and she was very grateful. Molly hadn’t forgotten how desperately ill she was that night when she and the young ’uns arrived at Tilly Watson’s door. No sooner had little Sal rattled on the door than her mammy slumped to the ground, wasted and ill, swamped with relief at having safely delivered her babies to a familiar place, and not caring any more whether she lived or died.

After two weeks of Tilly’s care and attention – and the good-natured observation that Molly had better get well for ‘I ain’t being lumbered with another brood o’ brats!’ – Molly was well enough to get from the bed she shared with Tilly. A few days after that, she was pottering about and gaining strength by the day.

‘You still look like a bag o’ bones, gal,’ Molly told her reflection in the window. The black eyes had begun to twinkle though, and the strong lines of her lovely features were not quite so sharp. Her hair, however, was a pitiful sight – still thick and black as midnight, but hacked short by Tilly who believed ‘hair harbours lice, my gal… an’ I ain’t got no time for picking ’em out.’ So she had brought the meat knife from the scullery and while Joe held out the rich thick hanks of Molly’s hair, Tilly had chopped away at it. At the time, Molly hadn’t minded. Now though she winced to look at it. It had cheered her when Joe told her, only the other day, how he thought it suited her short like that and ‘fetches the beauty of yer eyes out’. Tilly had laughed out loud, saying how comical it was that Molly had been at death’s door, and ‘here yer are, worried about yer crowning glory!’ Molly had laughed too, feeling vain and foolish. Since Jack wouldn’t be coming back, and she had thoughtlessly sent Mick away, what did it matter whether she had shining black hair to be proud of, or a tangled shocking mess? It didn’t matter. Not one little bit.